Shifting Sites

Organized and circulated by the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, an affiliate of the National Gallery of Canada

Challenging the classical role of the camera as a neutral recorder of reality, these photographers use two subjects – the body and the land – to explore issues of identity, place, and memory. Multiple views, composite images, stitching and lightbox technology are some of the ways in which the artists transform photographs to suit their subjective aims.

As the title of this exhibit implies, the artists present viewers with a dynamic perspective on the once-unified "big picture." In the portrait photographs, a single view of the subject is never enough, although multiple views may fail to coalesce around a singular version of who the subject is. The landscape photographs, while beautiful, also undermine the idea of essential or enduring form. As the curator Andrea Kunard observes, "a sense of place and identity must be created through the assembling of fragments. . .that allows for only a provisional understanding of the world."

Shifting Sites includes works by nine up-and-coming Canadian photographers.